I Tried to Cancel Tailor Brands. A Year Later, They Charged Me $1,027.96.

I have a tiny LLC called Waygate Technologies. I originally set it up for some consulting work, and a few years ago I used Tailor Brands to help with the formation and ongoing compliance stuff.

The business is not complicated. It doesn’t have employees. It doesn’t have complicated corporate governance. These days, it’s mostly an umbrella for software projects I’m working on. In year 1, I made about 15K through consulting, but due to life changes and other reasons, I’ve stepped back and in 2026 so far this year I’ve made exactly zero dollars.

So… not complicated.

And yet somehow, canceling the services attached to this tiny LLC has turned into one of the most ridiculous customer-service experiences I’ve had in years.

I tried to cancel in 2025

In September 2025, I went to Tailor Brands’ website and submitted requests to cancel my services.

The website told me:

“Our team is currently reviewing your request.”

Okay. Fine.

Except apparently “currently” can mean more than a year.

Because in September 2026, those cancellation requests were still showing as being reviewed.

They had never been completed.

So I tried again before the renewal

With another renewal approaching, I called Tailor Brands on September 10, 2026 and told them I wanted to cancel.

I was paying for two services:

Elite LLC, their LLC/compliance package.

And Registered Agent, which provides the registered agent for my California LLC.

I did not want either service anymore.

During the call, I was told they couldn’t cancel everything until I changed my registered agent with California.

That created another wonderfully circular problem: California’s bizfile system said that I wasn’t the “authorized user” for my own LLC. I called them, spent two hours on the phone waiting, only to be told that I had to request access from the “third party authorized user.” To state the obvious, that’s Tailor Brands.

Meanwhile, the Tailor Brands renewal was approaching.

So after the phone call, I put my cancellation request in writing too.

I explicitly told them I was canceling both subscriptions and that I did not authorize the upcoming renewal.

Then they charged me anyway.

A Thousand Bucks in return for Frustration

Tailor Brands charged my American Express card twice:

• $571.98 for the Elite LLC plan
• $455.98 for the Registered Agent service

Total: $1,027.96.

And here’s where this gets particularly interesting.

When I contacted Tailor Brands afterward, their own support representative wrote:

“I understand your concern about the Bi Annual renewal, especially since you were trying to cancel both the Elite Plan and Registered Agent service before the charge went through.”

…Yes, my customer service friend, that’s exactly what I did.

Tailor Brands acknowledged, in writing, that I was trying to cancel both services before the charges went through.

But their proposed solution wasn’t to process my cancelation, it was to give me the runaround. They explained that the $1,027.96 represented two years of service paid upfront and offered to convert me back to annual billing, refunding the second year.

That would have meant refunding $285.99 for Elite LLC and $227.99 for the Registered Agent service.

But I didn’t want a cheaper subscription. I didn’t want an annual subscription. I didn’t want a discount.

I wanted to cancel.

So I responded:

“I neither want nor need your services. I want the charges refunded and I want my account with Tailor Brands canceled. Not lowered, not discounted. Canceled. Completely done.”

I also pointed out that I’d originally tried to cancel a year earlier.

The chargeback

Eventually I disputed the $571.98 Elite LLC charge with American Express.

Tailor Brands responded by suspending my account.

Their billing team later emailed me:

“I checked your account and saw that you issued a chargeback for your Elite LLC plan (Bi-Annual) ($571.98).”

They explained that initiating a chargeback automatically blocks the account and cancels future automatic payments.

I’m now disputing the $455.98 Registered Agent charge as well.

So AMEX gets to sort this out now.

The part I can’t get over

Subscriptions renew automatically. I understand that.

Companies also need processes for cancellation. I understand that too.

But there’s a pretty basic expectation underlying all of this:

When a customer tells you they want to cancel, you should let them cancel.

Tailor Brands’ own published Terms of Service say subscriptions automatically renew unless they’re canceled before renewal, and that customers can cancel through their account settings or contact support before the renewal date. That’s exactly what I tried to do!

What bothers me most isn’t even the $1,027.96.

It’s the amount of effort required to stop paying a company I no longer want to do business with.

I’ve submitted cancellation requests.

I’ve called support, emailed support, spent hours on the phone with California’s Secretary of State filing system, saved screenshots, saved email threads, filed credit card disputes.

(…what am I paying these guys for, again?)

And I’m doing all of this for an LLC that barely does anything.

This shouldn’t require a project plan. It should just be pressing a button.

A lesson for other small-business owners

If you’re canceling an LLC formation, compliance, or registered-agent service, document everything.

Take screenshots of cancellation requests, save confirmation emails, write down when you called, follow those calls with something in writing, explicitly state your request and expectations that follow their own printed guidelines, and keep those records.

Because if the merchant charges you anyway, “I canceled this” is a much stronger argument when you can produce a timeline showing exactly when and how you did it.

In my case, I have something even better:

The merchant itself acknowledging in writing that I tried to cancel before it charged me.

We’ll see what American Express decides.

But I know one thing already.

I’m definitely not renewing.